Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985 video game)

Atari Games

Industry	Video games
Headquarters	United States
Products	Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (arcade game)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is an action game created by Atari Games and launched in arcades in 1985. Drawing inspiration from the 1984 motion picture, it was the inaugural Atari System 1 arcade title to incorporate digitized voice samples, featuring audio clips from Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Amrish Puri as Mola Ram, complemented by the film's score composed by John Williams.

Gameplay

In this game, players take on the role of Indiana Jones as he penetrates the sinister Thuggee cult’s stronghold, utilizing an eight-direction joystick coupled with a whip button. The mission involves freeing abducted children, reclaiming the stolen "Sankara Stones," escaping the temple complex, and confronting the cult’s leader, Mola Ram.

Gamers select from three difficulty settings before advancing through three levels modeled after scenes from the movie:

1. Freeing imprisoned children within mines while dodging Thuggee sentries and environmental threats such as snakes and spikes.
2. Navigating a mine cart along tracks, avoiding collisions or derailments.
3. Securing a Sankara Stone from the sacrificial altar.

Players lose lives when encountering hazards, enemy assaults, mine cart accidents, or falls. The whip serves both to incapacitate foes and to assist in crossing gaps.

This sequence repeats four times with escalating dangers; on the fourth iteration, the altar stage is replaced by a climactic showdown on a rope bridge. Victory over Mola Ram unlocks a bonus round where players collect golden statues for additional points until all lives are exhausted.

Ports

The game was adapted by Paragon Programming and published by U.S. Gold for platforms including the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, and ZX Spectrum in 1987. The ZX Spectrum edition achieved top position in the Woolworths sales rankings. That same year, separate conversions for the Atari ST and Commodore 64 were developed by Mindscape. In 1989, Mindscape also released versions compatible with the Amiga and MS-DOS computers. The NES version was ported by Tengen in December 1988, while an Apple II adaptation was completed by Papyrus Design Group for Tengen in June 1989.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed the arcade edition as the fourth highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade game in December 1985.

The magazine Computer and Video Games commended the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Atari ST versions for their faithful replication of the arcade original, particularly praising the Atari ST's gameplay experience but criticizing its difficulty level and audio effects.

Jonathan Sutyak from AllGame assigned a rating of 1.5 out of 5 stars to the Commodore 64 port, describing it as a "major disappointment" due to substandard gameplay mechanics, controls, visuals, and limited sound design. He acknowledged that the inclusion of theme music was one of its few strengths but ultimately deemed it an overall inferior release.